Shadows' Lethal Strength Drain

[FreeTheSlaves]

Well, today 2 measely shadows killed my 9th level cleric cohort.

They got the drop on her due to their stealth.

1) Shadows: One critical hit, and another hit
1) Her: no deathward due to being low on spells, and dusted only one as the other was out of position
2) Remaining Shadow: one hit, and that's that.

Man, is it just my experience or is their lethal strength drain seem such a bogus rule?!

 

[Arkhandus]

Not their fault if, by 9th-level, you folks weren't prepared to deal with the occasional ghost/wraith/shadow. Couldn't the cleric have healed a decent amount of their own ability damage with a single spell? Was there no mage around with half the wits to cast Magic Missile for 5d4+5 damage or more to obliterate a Shadow?

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

Our characters had spent the day battling vampires and wraiths, were exhausted of spells, and our main cleric was dead. Our sorceress ally is lost to us trapped on an unknown plane.

The point of the post was, the shadows' lethal ability damage can instantly kill a <str 12 character with one hit. No save. Put another way, 2 x CR3 creatures can kill a low touch AC, moderate str character with relative ease.

Please don't berate.

 

[Hawken]

Actually its only instantly lethal, no save for an Str 12 (or less) if the attack is a crit and a 6 is rolled. But even still, your 9th level guy alone should have been able to do something other than just stand there and die. What was his AC? He should have had at least a +2-3 bonus to armor, and maybe the same for a shield, so his touch AC could have been anywhere from 14+, more if rings of protection or bracers or something were involved.

What about your characters? To have a 9th cohort, you had to be at least 11th level, which means you alone should have been able to wipe out the shadows before they got your cohort dead. Your fighter would get at least 3-5 attacks/round, maybe more, and one each should be enough for those guys. What were you guys doing while your cohort was dying?

Maybe the DM was going overboard throwing just one encounter too many at you, but CR 3 or not, those shadows had only 3hd, avg of what, 23? 25hp?. Any 11th + fighter shouldn't have a problem with two of those.

Scrolls of (Lesser) Restoration, potions of bull's strength, any of these could have temporarily offset the drain long enough to finish the shadows off. Hell, could have run away between you and your other party members forcing the shadows to take (multiple) AoOs from your party in order to get to the cohort. If you guys were out against wraiths, that means you should have had ghost touch weapons, so it shouldn't have been a big deal to take them out.

The point is, their Str drain is potent, but not unfair considering the plethora of options to use against such weak (low hp) creatures that a single Turn attempt could destroy no matter how bad your turn checks were at your levels. If 2 or more 11th+ characters couldn't stop 2 shadows, you almost deserve to lose your cohort.

 

[Nifft]

Our characters had spent the day battling vampires and wraiths, were exhausted of spells, and our main cleric was dead. Our sorceress ally is lost to us trapped on an unknown plane.

The point of the post was, the shadows' lethal ability damage can instantly kill a <str 12 character with one hit. No save. Put another way, 2 x CR3 creatures can kill a low touch AC, moderate str character with relative ease.

Please don't berate.

This is 100% true. But it's also not a problem IMHO.

Consider that a 1st level Orc Barbarian who crits with a greataxe can deal over 50 hp worth of damage ... crits are deadly. Very few 9th level Sorcerers could survive one crit, let alone one crit + two more hits.

It's dangerous to travel alone. It's deadly to travel alone without your daily resources (in your case, spells).

What will you be making next?

Cheers, -- N

 

[MarkB]

Actually its only instantly lethal, no save for an Str 12 (or less) if the attack is a crit and a 6 is rolled. But even still, your 9th level guy alone should have been able to do something other than just stand there and die. What was his AC? He should have had at least a +2-3 bonus to armor, and maybe the same for a shield, so his touch AC could have been anywhere from 14+, more if rings of protection or bracers or something were involved.

An incorporeal touch attack ignores conventional armour, regardless of enhancement bonus, unless it has the Ghost Touch special property, and since they attacked from concealment, Dexterity and Dodge bonuses would be irrelevant. That only leaves deflection bonuses, and would you really expect a 9th-level NPC to have more than maybe a +1 or +2 Ring of Protection? It would be remarkable for an NPC cleric to have an effective AC higher than 11 or 12 against those attacks.

However, I agree that this was a case of misfortune rather than bogus rules. Ability score damage can be pretty lethal, but only a critical hit would allow a Shadow enough time to inflict a serious quantity when faced with an 11th-level party.

 

[Dargon]

As Nifft said it is true but not a problem.
When a crit hit from a CR3 opponet can bring you to your down it restore the respect for all opponets even through you are 10 levels higher then the CR. I for one hate it when players get to the higher levels and gets the fell that low lvl opponets isn't dangerous.

I ones whiped out a party of 5 lvl 12 players with 4 lvl 2 drow fighters equiped with sleeping poison arrows. from that day one they were much more exited when i am sending in the low level stuff at higher level, because they know it can mean danger.

 

[shilsen]

A minor quibble...

Scrolls of (Lesser) Restoration

These take 3 rounds to use, so are almost useless in the middle of a fight.

 

[Infiniti2000]

Right, so get potions of lesser restoration.

Also, lesser restoration does not work vs. ability drain.

But, that's fine since the shadow inflicts ability damage, not drain.

The point of the post was, the shadows' lethal ability damage can instantly kill a <str 12 character with one hit. No save. Put another way, 2 x CR3 creatures can kill a low touch AC, moderate str character with relative ease.

The point of people replying is that this fight was not, in fact, instant. You can't expect people to react favorably until you fill them in on the multitude of additional variables. The main question I have is why didn't the cleric run away on his first opportunity?

 

[MarkB]

Right, so get potions of lesser restoration.

By a strict reading of the rules these have their limitations too, in that the item creator must choose which specific spell-effect to use at the time of creation - so there is no general potion of lesser restoration, but instead a bunch of different types of potion of that spell, each affecting a different ability score.

Personally I wouldn't be that strict, but that's how it works by RAW.